Kay M. Tye, Ph.D., received her bachelor’s degree in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from MIT in 2003 and earned her Ph.D. in 2008 at UCSF with Patricia Janak. Her thesis work was supported by the National Science Foundation and recognized with the Lindsley Prize in Behavioral Neuroscience as well as the Weintraub Award in Biosciences. She completed her postdoctoral training with Karl Deisseroth at Stanford University in 2011, with support from an NRSA from NIMH.

She joined the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and The Picower Institute at MIT in 2012, and has since been recognized with the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, Technology Review’s Top 35 Innovators under 35, and has been named a Whitehall, Klingenstein and Sloan Foundation Fellow.

“The NARSAD Young Investigator Award was critical in helping me launch my career as an independent investigator and pursue research on the neural circuitry underlying behaviors relevant to mental illness. This knowledge will hopefully facilitate the development of more efficacious treatments that have fewer side effects.”

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